Page 101 of You Float My Boat

‘Waiting for a friend,’ she replied.

I held back the shoulder shrug, because I honestly couldn’t be bothered to waste the energy. ‘Okay, cool. Well, see you.’

‘You’re avoiding me, Charlie,’ she called after me.

I spun back around, ‘I’m not avoiding you, Evie. I’m not doing anything.’

‘You don’t speak to me during class. Even when I’ve asked a question and I can see you know the answer, you don’t respond.’

‘Other people get there first,’ I replied, which was totally true. Gordon. Gordon always got there first. I might not have any intention of responding to Evie’s question, but I’d never had the chance anyway. ‘Beyond that I have nothing to say to you.’

Evie’s hands were wedged into her pockets but even from where I was standing I could tell her fists were clenching from the movement through her jacket. It used to be that not many people said no to Evie, maybe that was still the case.

‘You haven’t replied to any of my messages.’

My brows dropped as I wracked my brains. Prettysure I hadn’t erased the memory of receiving a message from her, though it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.

‘I’ve not had any me—’ I stopped talking.

Based on the expression she was wearing, she knew exactly why I’d not replied, she just wanted me to admit it. I’d not received any messages because I’d blocked her years ago, not to mention changed my phone number, and clearly forgotten all about it.

I could almost feel the sting of that news through the sharp twitching in her eye.

Probably a new experience for her.

Oh well.

Her lips rolled into a hard line, ‘Okay. I deserve that. But if you want to know what they said … I miss you.’

She never gave me the chance to tell her I wasn’t interested in what some old, blocked text message said. Or that I’d been standing here for five minutes now, and I was really cutting it fine. Evie was eating into my Violet time, and it was beginning to piss me off.

‘You miss me?’ I snapped, though one could say it bordered on a snarl.

She nodded. ‘I do, a lot.’

I could have handled theI do,and left it at that. It was thea lotwhich really pushed me over the edge. This girl didn’t know the meaning of what it felt like to miss someone. All she cared about was the attention, the game.

‘What is the matter with you? You are so full of shit. How can you not see that?’

It was stupid of me to think she might back down.She was Evie Waters. She never took no for an answer. It didn’t even look like she’d heard me.

‘Charlie –’

‘Enough. I’m so sick of this. You don’t miss me. You miss someone to control, and tell you how pretty you are. You didn’t miss me when you went off with Hector Bygraves. You didn’t miss me when you went off with Dave Chamberlain. This is all just another one of your games, and I’m not playing this time. I’m done, Evie. Please get that through your head and leave me alone.’

‘Can we not even talk about it?’ she continued, because she clearly hadn’t heard a word I’d said. ‘Be reasonable.’

Reasonable?

‘I feel sorry for you. I really do. I hope one day you can find someone that will give you what you need, but it’s not me. Maybe it never was,’ I added with a long shake of my head, suddenly weary of all the time I’d wasted because of this girl standing in front of me.

All the connection I’d blocked myself off from, all the love I’d built a wall against.

Until one person knocked it down.

The one I was late for.

I thumbed behind me, ‘I’m going. I’m late to meet my girlfriend.’

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